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SFAA Members Discuss Important Surety Issues With Lawmakers

MAY 9, 2013, WASHINGTON,
D.C.—Today, nearly three dozen representatives from SFAA member companies,
along with SFAA staff, met with almost 30 members of the House and Senate and
their staffs as part of SFAA’s annual Congressional Action Day. The goal is for
SFAA member company representatives to meet with their respective Congressional
representatives on the Hill to reinforce the importance of Congress addressing
surety legislation.

"With issues of spending, taxes, and the
national debt dominating the Congressional agenda, it can be challenging to get
leaders’ attention on surety issues. They are more likely, however, to pay more
attention to the importance of surety issues when they hear from their
constituents—in this case, SFAA member company representatives,” says Lenore
Marema, SFAA’s vice president of government affairs, who organizes
Congressional Action Day.

SFAA
members addressed two key issues on all their Hill visits to increase the
likelihood that our surety issues would have an impact. It is a top priority
for SFAA to change the federal procurement law to exempt the Miller Act bonding
threshold from the periodic reviews for inflation, which are now required for
all procurement thresholds. The existing federal law contains exemptions for
thresholds intended to provide some form of financial or other protection, such
as prevailing wages. The federal Miller Act bonding threshold should be
exempted as well, as it protects workers, suppliers, and taxpayers on federal
construction projects. It has little to do with increased costs in
construction.

SFAA
Congressional Action Day participants also addressed The Security in Bonding
Act (H.R. 776), which would require that the security that stands behind every
federal contractor’s obligations to the federal government should be governed
by the same rules. There should be either a corporate surety bond in place from
a company approved by the U.S. Treasury or assets with readily identifiable
value pledged and relinquished to the federal government while the construction
project is ongoing.

While
these surety issues are not the biggest issues on the Congressional agenda,
both of them are good government issues. They make the federal procurement
process more effective, save taxpayer dollars, protect small businesses, and are
issues that can move through Congress on a bipartisan basis.

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The Surety & Fidelity Association of America (SFAA)
is a trade association of
more than 450 insurance companies that write the vast majority of surety and
fidelity bonds in the U.S.,
is a licensed rating or advisory organization in all states, including the
District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and is designated by state insurance
departments as a statistical agent for the reporting of surety and fidelity
insurance.